It is the year 2043. Global mega-corporations have gained unimaginable economic, political, and social power in the past 50 years, dominating every facet of daily life for most of Earth's 11 billion citizens. Employees toil endlessly at the mercy of their gargantuan masters; their power has dwindled down to nothing since billions of dollars in corporate lobbying efforts persuaded world leaders to ban unions in 2017.
In a world of intense competition, Imagine Media has grown to become the top media empire in the world, thanks in large part to its most profitable and innovative subsidiary, PC Gamer Inc. The mega-corporation has used its ingenuity and guile to wipe out or absorb all competition, capping its long stream of victories by obtaining the sole rights to review, promote, distribute, and provide servers for the most successful game ever, Quake 27. The latest version of the phenomenal hit can dynamically create "neo-virtual worlds" by converting existing buildings and structures into entirely new environments. These neo-virtual worlds are so realistic and deadly that the game is nearly banned due to the high mortality rate and the environmental impact of Q27's proprietary molecular conversion algorithms. Indeed, within the United States, a bill to ban the game comes close to passing, only to be struck down in the final hour with a veto from President John Carmack Jr., amidst scurrilous and unprovable rumors that he has been influenced by the vast financial resources of behemoths such as Imagine Media.
Despite the unparalleled success of Imagine Media and PC Gamer Inc., they must incur mind boggling costs in their communications departments, where terabytes of electronic messages (many containing what was once quaintly referred to as "fan mail") and neo-virtual world specifications pour into their corporate headquarters daily. The data is collected into efficient, high capacity devices called message crystals, and must be physically delivered to the parent company or its subsidiaries. Fortunately, outsourcing the manual labor helps to defray the costs and further increase skyrocketing profits.
In the messaging warehouses, hordes of increasingly disgruntled and alienated, outsourced employees toil endlessly in a disorganized and chaotic environment, locating and delivering misplaced message crystals that have been scattered throughout the winding hallways and massive, haphazardly placed storage containers. Their increasing frustrations are only mitigated by the occasional bonuses for good performance.
On the top floors of the Imagine Corporate Tower and Sports Arena, executives do not notice that the warehouses are being slowly converted via Quake 27's powerful environment creation capabilities into an alternate, neo-virtual world more to the workers' liking. The executives do not see that the competition between different communications departments has grown to untenable levels, and that some workers have begun disrupting the service of their perceived competitors by preventing them from delivering their message crystals in a timely fashion. As rivalries flare, embittered workers search for a release to curb their increasing frustration, discovering enemies in the faces of fellow employees in other communications departments. Further agitated by the increasingly hostile neo-virtual environment being adapted by Q27, some dangerously unbalanced individuals begin to use their bonuses to obtain new and powerful weapons, preparing to unleash their savage, boiling fury in the hopes of establishing dominance once and for all...